If boring old beer is no longer enough for you, advanced alcoholic products on the market now offer several different ways to get drunk.
Yes, beverage companies will definitely go out of their way to insure there’s a feasible way for everyone to get slammed, skewed, tipsy or torrentially wasted.
Wouldn’t want to miss those sales, now.
Folks who want to boost their buzz by drinking something that mixes alcohol with stimulants, like caffeine and guarana, can go for the alcohol energy drinks.
Think Red Bull meets Budweiser, perhaps.
But you better drink up quick. It finally came to someone’s attention that the combination of alcohol and stimulants may not be safe.
Really? But people have been popping uppers or snorting coke with alcohol for years. Only some of them die. What’s the harm with a little alcohol in an energy drink?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a Nov. 12 letter to 30 of these energy drink companies, giving them 30 days to prove that alcohol and caffeine do, indeed, safely mix.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, along with other AGs, sent a letter to the FDA some time back, asking the agency to look into this combination, according to a news release from his office.
“Scientists and medical professionals who have conducted research in this area stated that the use of caffeine and other stimulants as additives to alcoholic beverages poses public health and safety risks,” the release said.
“The scientists pointed to recent studies that confirm that caffeine appears to mask, but not reduce, the intoxicating effects of alcohol. Combining alcohol and caffeine may lead to increased risk-taking and other alcohol-related problems such as traffic accidents, violence, sexual assault and suicide.”
The release also noted the target audience for these alcohol energy drinks are the younger crowd, who habitually don’t think about things like risking their lives when they are trying to get blitzed.
If alcohol energy drinks are too risky for you – or you are watching your weight – you can always join the fray of “diet” beer drinkers.
For the health conscious, the big buzz has been low carb beers. This way you can make sure to maintain your six-pack abs as you slam a six pack of brews. Lite beers are old hat. We now need the low carb versions.
While companies at first labeled anything that was light as “low carb,” the U.S. Treasury Department Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax & Trade set standards about five years back, according to a report at BellaOnline.com.
Official “low carb” beers must have less than 7 grams of carbohydrates, but nothing stops other pale brews being labeled as “lower carb” or “reduced carb” – as long as they have lower carbs than their original brews.
We’re waiting for other advanced alcohol products, such as beer for pregnant or nursing mothers and beer especially brewed for athletes and bus drivers to enhance their performance on the job.
What do you think?
Are you going to try the alcohol energy drinks – or have you already – before they may get pulled off the market?
Do you think the FDA is being silly with its claims of the combo being unsafe?
Do you stick to your workout while drinking low carb brews?
Are alcohol companies getting ridiculous or do you think it’s smart for them to target different sectors of the population?
follow rynski:
I’ll stick to my homemade strawberry daiquiri’s. Are they lite or low-carb? I don’t know! At least I can feel a little better when I make them, since I prefer putting fresh strawberries in it. Mmmm!! 😀
hi jennatoolz!
at least you know you’re getting fresh fruit complete with lots of vitamins (and without bartender germs from sticking their fingers in the glass).
def. sounds like a healthy way to go.
Mornin’ Rynski! Intoxicating topic this morning. I’ve always wondered why anyone would settle for a less satisfying brew in order to watch that waist line, unless they plan to consume 30 or so of ’em. It’s always funny to see some overweight slob slammin’ a ‘lite’ beer. At least now they can rest assured that they are being healthy and alert as they start on that third sixer…
mornin’ radmax!
yes, the lite beer overweight slob phenomenon is kind of like the cheeseburger and super size fries consumer who orders the diet coke.
i am just laughing at all the ways alcohol companies are trying to market to different lifestyles. as if beer consumption isn’t high enough around here?
Many evidently are on a quest for the ultimate stage of alcoholic nirvana.(maybe a champagne bubble?) The distilleries and brewers are only too happy to help us achieve such a worthy goal…
Its obvious alcohol companies are going to do things to make money.. isnt that the goal???
Maybe we should blame the consumers rather than the companies… noone is forcing anyone to drink anything afterall. We have come to this point in society where personal responsibility is out the door and the popular thing is to blame producers of items, that way we never have to really own up to any mistakes.
very interesting – and good – point, rich.
you’re absolutely right. no one is FORCING anyone to buy this stuff.
you’re also absolutely right about personal responsibility being out the door. so sad, yet true. you see it all the time with those frivolous lawsuits.
thanks for chiming in.
You’re right, it is a personal choice to drink. But should we dismiss entirely the lifetime of advertising and other messages on TV, films, etc encouraging alcohol consumption?
…but all the ads are so true to life, so it’s not like they are false advertising, no? after all, you WILL get:
popular, sexy, thin, gorgeous, desirable, rich and find your true love (or at least a one night stand) if you drink, right?
“Stay thirsty, my friends”…latest from Dos XX’s. Another clunker is the lite commercial about a guy choosing a brew over his girlfriend if they were both about to go over a cliff, draggin’ the bottom of the barrel these days…
hahaha!
you’re on with the puns today, radmax.
did the guy’s girlfriend get upset that he chose beer over her? sounds like wanda in barfly….
Ha! That’s the ‘high point’ of the commercial, she just walks away from the clown while he gestures to ‘call me’, or ‘are we still on for tonight?’ or something…
Just like the old Chevy Corvair and the Ford Pinto. People blamed Ford and Chevy for getting burned to death when all they had to do was exercise that personal responsibility and never drive those cars out of the driveway. We should all know by now that a corporation would never, ever lie to us just in order to make money when lives are at stake.
hahhhahaha!
BTW – I think I’ve logged in about ten times today.
my video mysteriously disappeared – and reappeared – on saywer says. someone else was having comment probs. will tell IT the site is acting strange….
My logins have not “stuck” for at least a week now. At first I thought it was a cookie problem on my end, but it occurs on IE, Firefox and Opera, and my settings on all three seem to be correct.
I’ve tried a sip of a friends alcohol/energy drink before. It tasted like really strong cough medicine, which wasa gagger. I also recall not to long ago that vodka and red bull was kind of the fad drink of the moment, although I never tried it.
Socially I’ll have a drink now and then and it’s usually with my neighbor across the street, so no driving, and usually stick with the basics…rum and coke or a shot of tequila. Around the holidays, maybe a bit of a splurge (calorie wise) with a couple white russians.
strong cough medicine – sounds tasty!! hahaha.
not everyone, however, drinks for the taste. thanks for input, as always, azmouse.
They will have to pry my Irish Coffee from my cold dead hands.
Somehow we have done from the government outlawing things which are shown to cause harm to anything they want to unless you can prove that it causes no harm.
Count me as one of the few remaining citizens in favor of freedom – but we all know the Nanny State is coming.
I’ll drink to that. 🙂
ha! prohibition already failed – alcohol is too popular. besides, it’s very “in” to drink – and very strange and/or outcast-like not to. tis the topic of today’s dating blog – eager to see what folks have to say.
wow, hot topic this morning! Hiya Ryn 🙂
I don’t drink but just think . . . you can take vomiting to a whole new level . . .
hiya andrew!
thanks for mentioning vomit. it’s always a fine side effect and deserves mention at every turn…hahah.
ha! prohibition already failed
It “fails” all of the time but that doesn’t stop the nannys from trying to re-instate it at every opportunity as this move by the Feds shows.
I was going to go to the 7-11 to get a little marijuana, but it looks like I’ll have to find a pusher, instead.
hmmm, but they are only attacking some little portion of the whole huge alcohol market. they wouldn’t DARE try to outlaw alcohol altogether. if nothing else, it would prob. be too hypocritical…
regardless of what you are drinking, ladies need to be careful. DUI’s in Arizona are up 70% for women !
guess gals crying to get out of a ticket doesn’t work anymore (sob!)
I drink to make other people interesting!
good one, mitch!
Big government doing what they do best. Intrude on our lives. Maybe the FDA should be more focused on approving drugs that improve quality of life.
c’mon jake – they’ll never do that – that would actually make sense (haha).
thanks for comment.
one should dring according to their limits, anything done out of limits is always dangerous.